The searchlight is long and linear like a stick of neon-bright white chalk as the unmarked blacked-out bird banks sharply downriver, doing a one-eighty at the Harvard Bridge, near my headquarters.

“It wasn’t my idea,” Benton says as we stand outside the tent, looking up.

“And what idea are we talking about? Thundering up and down the river for what purpose?”

“Suffice it to say Carrie Grethen feeds off the attention but so do certain other people.”

By certain other people he means his own, his fellow agents, and we watch the helicopter scream past again.

“I was against it, saying she’ll only get off on it if she’s goaded into overdrive. She’ll just kick it up even higher, but I was outvoted,” and that’s all he’s going to say about it.

The rest I can probably guess with a high degree of accuracy. The FBI is searching this area of Cambridge, and I’m betting they have choppers up in Maryland and possibly other places. If this is for Carrie Grethen’s benefit it’s truly stupid, and Benton is right about that. In fact the idea of intimidating her in such a fashion would be laughable if anything were funny at the moment.

The Bureau’s big machines don’t impress her, and more likely they’ve been deployed for appearance sake, to make sure the taxpayers know that Federal agents have stormed in to save the day. That’s what Benton meant when he referenced that Carrie’s isn’t the only ego in the mix. There’s nothing like being splashy. There’s nothing like giving a false but dramatic impression, and this is why cops like Marino snipe about the Famous But Incompetent, another moniker tossed around about the FBI. It’s why they’re the FIBs.

It’s why Marino resents and distrusts them, and as I think of Elisa Vandersteel’s body being loaded on a stretcher right about now, I feel a rush of indignation. The FBI with its expensive equipment and slick agents hasn’t mobilized for her sake. She’s nothing more than a means to an end, and I ask myself the same thing I always do. What are the Feds really after?

The answer is almost always going to be mundane if not predictable. Add politics to power and season liberally with publicity. Then stir in the elevated terror alert for the Boston-Washington area that Benton mentioned earlier, and that’s probably what I’m dealing with. In summary, it’s why Marino has been marginalized and I’m about to be if I’m not clever.

“Remember this isn’t a race,” Benton says, and he’s setting a very slow pace as we trek back to where he’s parked near the entrance at John F. Kennedy Street. “If you start breathing hard or feeling unsteady, we’re pausing and taking a break.”